Dr. Tobia Bezzola graduated in philosophy and art history and worked as an assistant professor at the University of Zurich. From 1992 to 1995, he worked as the assistant of Harald Szeemann. From 1995 until 2012 he was a curator and head of the exhibition department at the Kunsthaus in Zurich. During this period, he curated more than thirty exhibitions, including monographic shows on e.g. Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Max Beckmann, Edward Steichen, Alberto Giacometti, Joseph Beuys, Christian Marclay, Thomas Struth, Ed Ruscha and many others, as well as numerous thematic exhibitions (e.g. Rivoluzione! Italian Modernism from Segantini to Balla; Hot Spots: Rio de Janeiro / Milano – Torino / Los Angeles; FotoSkulptur). From 2013 to 2018 he was the Director of the Museum Folkwang in Essen, one of the foremost German art museums where he further developed the museum’ s collecting and exhibition activities of international relevance (for example, projects with Gerhard Richter, Albert Oehlen, Robert Frank, Pierre Soulages, Joan Mitchell, The Pinault Collection, Thomas Schütte, Karl Lagerfeld, Katharina Fritsch, Douglas Gordon, Taryn Simon, Alexander Kluge and many others). Since 2018 he is the Director of the Museo d’arte della Svizzera Italiana, MASI, Lugano. He has been the Director of the Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana (MASI) in Lugano since 2018, and has taught Contemporary Art History at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio since 2021.
